Ekoko Mukete, General Manager of the media group Spectrum, which owns two television channels in Cameroon, is an influential man in his country. He has been Vice President of the Cameroon Chamber of Commerce and Industry since 2003 and is also Chairman of United Bank of Africa (UBA Bank) in Cameroon, and Honorary Consul of the Republic of Turkey – a country which is increasingly investing in Africa. During the European Development Days (EDD), he came to present an Africa on the move and to talk about the African private sector’s contribution to the growth of the continent.
“A continent which has a real economy with tangible assets”, he explains, “in a world where the economy is tending to become virtual and where the financial system is based on the intangible. Yet Africa is real, with its population, its mineral resources and its land. It is high time that Europe recognized that it is the continent of tomorrow. Partners should change their approach. China, India – the BRIC group of emerging countries – have money and invest in Africa. For the first time, Africa has an alternative.”
For Ekoko Mukete’s generation, there is no longer any question of coming to hold out a helping hand in former colonial cities. “We are seeking a win-win partnership, on every count”, he insists, “Africa has something which Europe needs.”
Ekoko Mukete, who switches easily from English to French, embodies this Africa where language barriers are disappearing. In Cameroon, a bilingual country, he believes that the two languages of the former colonizers are “A blessing which has allowed Cameroonians to do business all over Central Africa.” He also points out that Rwanda decided to change from French to English, just like Gabon under Ali Bongo Ondimba, a President who alternates between the two languages in his own speeches.
A sign of an increasingly globalized Africa: “Côte d’Ivoire, a French-speaking African country, produces more presentation documents in English than Cameroon”, notes Ekoko Mukete. Another more well-known revolution underway is that of Internet. “A small business which sells masks in Douala can now sell them as far away as in Bora Bora or New Zealand. With this new technology, the only thing that holds you back is your spirit, your vision, the way you think. Young entrepreneurs who start up in Douala, Dakar, Libreville or Johannesburg can be global players right from the very first day.”
African diaspora is another anchor for Africa in the world and it is often underestimated – despite the decisive economic contributions they make, particularly via remittances for countries like Mali, Cape Verde or Somalia. For Ekoko Mukete, they are the “sleeping giant”. African diaspora are “A major asset for the coming years, if they return to their respective countries to grasp the opportunities of the better life that they have left to seek abroad.”
Yet the recurrent political crises in Africa could hold back this movement of return by African professionals trained and working abroad… and confuse the issue in the coming years for a private sector which must reckon with public authorities that are often predatory and sometimes unstable.
The trend, notes Ekoko Mukete, is that we are seeing private sector leaders in Africa become politicized, rather than political leaders taking the destiny of major groups into their hands – for the moment, the only exception is South Africa. In the case of Cameroon alone, “Businessmen have made money and have then gone into politics, by becoming mayors, so that they can have a flag on their car and satisfy their egos”, notes Ekoko Mukete. “This has affected business: these businesses leaders should have focused on business.”
This being said, the top business leader thinks that the private sector, in Cameroon as elsewhere, contributes in its own way to preserving peace. “People do not burn down buildings when there are demonstrations in Cameroon, because they know that these buildings belong to other Cameroonians and not to Lebanese or Greek people, as is the case in other countries. There is a sense of ownership which contributes to peace.”
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